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Cougar – you seem to have missed pretty much everything I’ve written.
No, I'm trying to understand what you've written and you've not answered anything I asked.
I’d like her to cycle but a) she doesn’t want to; b) it’s A roads c ) potential bike storage issue.
a) so what, walk then, b) it's still A roads on a scooter, c) potential scooter storage issue.
Scooting sensibly up the pavement seemed a good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.
Riding sensibly up the pavement seems an equally good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, rather your proposed solution doesn't seem to solve any of the problem. It all seems to boil down to "daughter says no," roads are an irrelevance if you're simply proposing she scoots on the pavement rather than riding on it.
Does she want a scooter or are we back to a) again?
CBT and a 125.
More spendy but probably safer and def less illegal.
Plan.
How old is she?
See the odd person getting around on them in letchworth. Think they're brilliant - definitely a big part of the future of local transport. I wouldn't mind one for my shopping trips!
Roller skates?
Faster than walking? - check
Ok on pavement? - check
Easy to store? - check
Cheap? - check
Legal? - check... I think...
Good for hills? - well downhill yes, up, not so much
Rental ones are usually limited to about 12mph and they’ll often drop to a lot less in pedestrianised areas, like 5-8mph max. They’re geo-fenced. Private ones will quite often do up to 25mph or so, there’s a few of the more heavily built ones will do even more.
The trial rental scooters in Cambridge are 15 mph on roads, no slower than a bike. They're pretty nippy as well.
All roads (bar ring road) are supposedly 20mph so not really disadvantaged (although obvs no car ever goes as slow as 20mph outside rush hour).
On my days off I like to start with a few cans of special brew then hire an e-scooter just to make my point.
I hope you don't - police pulled loads of people one night on our rental escooters and did them all for drunk driving which went onto their driving licences
Get her one of those horrendous electric conversion kits that all the delivery cyclists seem to use on their 'pedal' bikes
Roller skates?
I commuted on roller blades a few times. Very much not as easy as it sounds in a typical suburban situation!
Scooting sensibly up the pavement seemed a good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.
I think that option is not viable so escooter is out. You should not be riding a personal escooter anyway and riding on the pavement would seem worse than riding on road.
I used to use a larger wheeled push along scooter to go 3 miles to work and it is much faster than walking and I never had any issues from police although nowadays I guess I could as they would just see it as another scooter and lump it in with escooters
Get an e-scooter. Make sure she knows she's "travelling". As a sovereign citizen she is an owner of the land and the officer for the person that is her gives permission for her to use the e-scooter on the land.
Job jobbed and many confused officers of the law.
But round here these things are a bloody menace universally piloted by utter knuckles. On the roads they have zero road sense and on the pavement the speed differential between vehicle and pedestrian is too great.
As are cars, no? OK they don't drive on the pavements normally. They just park on them instead forcing me to walk onto the road in places or cause risk when I'm cycling.
I'm not addressing the scooter legality point there I realise. But that aside it follows that those less bothered about the law ride them currently and that's seen in the riding attitudes at times. More responsible types are scared off using them by the illegality.
I work for a company who sells them and drive in Bristol a fair bit, for disclaimer/balance/relevance. I don't ride a scooter though as I have bikes.
Riding sensibly up the pavement seems an equally good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.
SHE DOESN'T WANT TO RIDE A BIKE TO WORK!
I’m not trying to be argumentative
You are. Agressive quoting and not really reading the OP doesn't help.
breatheeasy
Free MemberOn my days off I like to start with a few cans of special brew then hire an e-scooter just to make my point.
I hope you don’t – police pulled loads of people one night on our rental escooters and did them all for drunk driving which went onto their driving licences
slight thread de-rail....
how does that work, you don't need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?
Surely its the same as cycling drunk, you can't be done for DD but you can be done for various other offences, none of which are endorsable on your (if you have one) License
I'm with Cougar on this one. E bike ridden sensibly on pavement where required.
Leaving aside the right and wrongs unless through a council approved scheme E scooters are illegal to use in a public place.
She might get away with it, she might get the scooter confiscated on the first day of use.
Edit..
re-read the OP, daughter dosnt want to cycle.
Oh well, kinda out of legal options then...
"Aggressive quoting" sounds like something Rimmer would write up Lister for.
slight thread de-rail….
how does that work, you don’t need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?
That’s all in page one of the thread. An illegal e scooter is not a bicycle and falls under laws for motor vehicles
Lol.
Best solution seems to be the one she has now. Some a deal with a taxi driver.
Surely its the same as cycling drunk,
I don't think so. If (not sure, but I think this is the case as that would be why they are illegal on the road) these things count as vehicles for the purposes of being on the road, then they are in the same category as mopeds etc. and so drink driving rules apply. I wonder what applies to ebikes? I had better look that up before taking my ebike on the pub ride. When I get round to getting an ebike, which looks even farther off having considered this issue.
So if you are drunk on one, stick to the pavement, which may not count for that purpose (dunno the answer to that one either). I may or may not get rond to looking all this up proper.
"how does that work, you don’t need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?
Surely its the same as cycling drunk, you can’t be done for DD but you can be done for various other offences, none of which are endorsable on your (if you have one) License"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-58661601
"A man has been banned from the roads for riding an e-scooter while more than three times the legal alcohol limit."
OP: If your daughter doesn't have a problem with having a scooter seized, getting points and/or a driving ban and a hefty fine then go with the scooter. I've seen plenty of people riding them, but I've also seen someone looking glum while their e-scooter is loaded into the boot of a police car. I think they should be legal but for now they're not, so a bike ridden considerately on the pavement is probably the best option if the points/fine are a problem. You risk a telling off and small fine but it's very unlikely, and the bike won't be seized, and she won't get any points. If she doesn't want to ride a bike then you're left with a non-e scooter or rollerblades. Or the e-scooter but with the risk of some quite serious repercussions.
You might not like that, but it's the way the law works at the moment so you can't get annoyed at other posters for telling you that.
There not all slow
You see loads in Spain but the Spanish seem much more tolerant of each others choice of transport,in the cities I've visited the infrastructure for cycling/scooter riding is way better than the UK
" So if you are drunk on one, stick to the pavement, which may not count for that purpose"
It makes no difference, like drink driving in a car but taking to pavement rather than the road.
As it stands today the privately owned e-scooter is the transportation solution of choice for rampant chav scum round our way. I don't believe there's a rental scheme running locally (or at least not a successful one).
I do think there's been a trick missed in terms of legalising them with appropriate rules on safety features, construction standards and operation, funnily enough bicycles/e-bikes are the basic template...
But anyway the pragmatic answer has already been given I think, if she's sensible enough to use lights, avoid riskier situations (note: on an A-road?) and accept the potential for legal issues (mostly unenforced at present) then yeah, she could use one for a while, but is it really a good long term solution for the journey you described OP?
You know, depths of winter with ice about etc? Is Dad still going to get called up and asked for a lift home?
I’m with Cougar on this one. E bike ridden sensibly on pavement where required.
I don't think I mentioned an e-bike?
Riding a bike is illegal on the pavement. Riding a non-rental e-scooter is illegal on both the pavement and the roads. Whether policing of either of these infractions would happen in actuality (which is what the OP is asking, can she wilfully break the law on a twice-daily basis and get away with it?) I can only guess, but probably not. That said, if she's commuting at the same times every day then she's predictable and is someone were to take umbrage and report her...
I get that she doesn't want to ride a bike, even in shouty capitals, but she doesn't want to walk either, doesn't want a taxi and the parental unit(s) are seemingly bored of giving her a lift. So we appear to be at something at an impasse unless she picks which one of those she doesn't want to do the least. Back when I used to commute from East Lancs to Warrington I didn't particularly want to spend two hours of my day on the M6 but I didn't have a vast amount of choice in the matter.
The other options would be to learn to drive, or CBT + moped / 125 as suggested earlier. At least here if she mows down a granny she'll be insured.
Back to the OP, you mention a bit near the M25. If this is in the Surrey section you might want to be careful, I see Surrey police pulling people on EScooters over quite a bit. Seems they've been told to crack down on them
I do think there’s been a trick missed in terms of legalising them with appropriate rules on safety features, construction standards and operation, funnily enough bicycles/e-bikes are the basic template…
It's a complete farse. The fact they are illegal is completely irrelevant, you have Halfords etc selling 10,000s every year to people who are only going to ride them on the roads / pavements.
The police don't have the man power to do anything about it other than the occasional blitz where they stop 0.00001% of users and confiscate a few scooters (which you can then claim back later).
They may as well just legalise it and try and encourage good behaviour (obs some will always ignore it as with car drivers and red light jumping / speeding etc).
How about a mobility scooter? They seem completely acceptable on pavement or road, she could even take a shortcut through the shopping centre?
They are pretty nippy too!
In Liverpool, you can use public ones but they're speed limited and you must now park them in specific zones, which defeats the purpose. You can rip around in a Range Rover as fast as you can and leave it anywhere you want, however.
The trial rental scooters in Cambridge are 15 mph on roads, no slower than a bike. They’re pretty nippy as well.
They're 10mph in Cambridge, aren't they? They were supposed to up the limit to 25km/h, but I don't think that has happened yet judging from what I've seen recently. They are very much slower than cycling, and pretty unpleasant in places without segregated cycling infrastructure like Mill Road and on the many rat run parked car slaloms.
If the scooter is seized you cannot get it back a to do so you have to have the correct license and insurance - and you cannot get insurance for a motor vehicle that does not meet regs
so once its seized its gone for good
Think they’re brilliant – definitely a big part of the future of local transport.
Maybe. We have one of the hire operators in Birmingham and they seem to get plenty of use, but I can't help thinking they are mainly replacing walking or getting the bus, not driving. If that's the case their positive impact is a bit blunted I think.
You are. Agressive quoting and not really reading the OP doesn’t help.
thanks Ads - as OP I thought I was going nuts!
The legal rental scheme scooters are to have number plates soon, so that the illegal private ones can be more easily identified.
https://www.micromobilitybiz.com/all-trial-e-scooters-will-have-to-display-number-plates-from-april/
I’d paint it up to look like one from a local scheme
The Police won’t take a second look 😀
+1
The legal rental scheme scooters are to have number plates soon, so that the illegal private ones can be more easily identified.
They all have had for nearly 2 years now!
The trial schemes started just before the Pandameic IIRC.
They all have little number plates on the front, side and rear:
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50828100721_046759a920.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50828100721_046759a920.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2krviwa ]Voi Scooters, Cambridge[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
Although it's a moot point as for every legal trial one there are 10 illegal ones which no one is in the slightest bit bothered about (other than poss the Daily Mail).
Not sure it's any help to the OP but here in Milton Keynes we have the perfect infrastructure for scooters and I'd be very surprised if the police bothered to undertake any sort of clamp down. We have a massive network of (redways) cycle and pedestrian off road paths that follow pretty much every road and run through every estate to the extent that I see e-scooters all the time with no real issues. You can go absolutely anywhere in MK without needing the road or dedicated footpath. It would be a crime if they got all policy over scooter here.
cant fathom why updating the vehicle classification isnt a high priority for the government.
Such an easy win to facilitate sensible, modern mass transit.
Legalise e scoothers, and in the process set out a frame work as to where they can and cant be used, and how they should behave.
Enable the Citroen Ami to be used as designed.
CBT, and a smidge of insurance and she could get an electric moped? I think this is where things should be going myself. Single rider, twist and go, a box to put your shopping in.
https://urbanebikes.com/collections/electric-mopeds/products/niu-m-plus-electric-scooter
cant fathom why updating the vehicle classification isnt a high priority for the government.
I suspect it's as simple as the scooter companies haven't donanted enough to the Tory party for it to become a priority.
cant fathom why updating the vehicle classification isnt a high priority for the government.
Such an easy win to facilitate sensible, modern mass transit.
I’d say it’s quite simple to me! Vested interests want to make sure they profit from it - VCs who own scooter rental firms, insurers, car manufacturers (plus taxi firms, Uber etc), petrol suppliers etc.
Can't remember where I read it (FT or Economist probably) but the initial results from the offical trial schemes aren't that promising. Turns out most people using them and young people substituting walking / cycling and public transport for escooters. The overall carbon footprint has actually gone up as the scooter batteries are carbon intensive. They have agreed to extend the trial period as a result of the Pandemic getting in the way, but they're not a 'green' alternative.
All the people with cars are still using cars to get from A to B and the whole 'green' premis of escooters is that they would substitute car journeys. So far, very little evidence of that.
All the people with cars are still using cars to get from A to B and the whole ‘green’ premis of escooters is that they would substitute car journeys. So far, very little evidence of that.
This is my intuition about them as well, but they may become an appealing alternative to getting a car in the first place for younger people.
And there's probably potential for replacing the car leg of mixed commutes. Though less people are commuting now anyway.
The jury's definitely still out, but it's strange how many people post about "they're all a bloody menace" without realising they sound exactly like anti-cycling gammons.
this as ever needs both the carrot and stick. to make alternatives to cars more attractive the cost of driving needs to be increased ( and use that tax to subsidise alternatives) and the convenience of car driving reduced
What's the average commute these days? In my mind, these scooters would work for a 2-3 mile commute as a faster alternative to walking (as the OP wants). I don't imagine many people actually walk 3 miles each way to work, do they? I suppose there are also some people who might 'park and ride' a scooter into town from 1-2 miles out.
For longer journeys (3+ miles I guess) bikes or eBikes make more sense to me.
to make alternatives to cars more attractive the cost of driving needs to be increased
The sort of journies you would use an escooter for (2 miles or less across town) are ones where you can never make driving too expensive, you just have to close the roads to cars completely in town centres.
In the Cambridge trial the scooters are limited to the town itself - don't think you can take then out, so the absolute max journey you could take is only a few miles and I suspect most are under 2 miles.
I have to say I'm surprised (kinda) by the hate shown to them on here. Less cars on the roads, easy transport and gets you exactly where you want, potentially unlike a bus. Surely would create more pressure to change the infrastructure balance away from cars too.
I see them pretty much every day on my drive to work (if I turn right instead of left!). While granted they are currently illegal, and its not a pavement but a shared use path thats used, but there are several that are ridden courteously everyday up the hill towards the hospital/business park with never a problem. People in shirts and ties with a brief case over a shoulder. I think that's why they are left alone generally, because they aren't causing issues and riding like morons. I really think this should be encouraged.
I really think this should be encouraged.
They're not going anywhere and each year Halfords sell 10,000s of them, so regardless of what anyone thinks we just need to integrate them as best as possible.